Jin Hi Kim

ARTIST: Jin Hi Kim

COUNTRY: South Korea

GENRE: World Music, Improv, Experimental, Modern Composition

DESCRIPTION: Jin Hi Kim is a pioneer of innovative komungo (4th century fretted board zither) solo music and has devoted her life to introducing Korean music outside of Korea. Kim’s komungo music is deeply rooted in Korean tradition. She studied with masters from the National High School for Korean Traditional Music, as well as with composers John Adams, Lou Harrison, Terry Riley and David Rosenboom.

MORE ABOUT: Kim studied and practiced traditional music with masters from National High School for Korean Traditional Music, which is affiliated with the Ministry of Culture. The school was Yi Dynasty Court Music Institute. In 1973 the school was established under the nation’s single music institute, the prestigious National Center for Korean Traditional Performing Arts. The institute sought to preserve the nation’s historical and cultural past, including that of the Korean traditional court music and dance over 1,500 years old. She then studied with Korea’s leading ethnomusicologists and earned a BA degree in Korean Traditional Music at Seoul National University before moving to the United States in 1980.

The komungo is a string instrument indigenous to Korea that originated in the fourth century. The six-stringed, fretted board zither was traditionally performed by male Confucian scholars for their meditation and was mainly used in the court music orchestra and Kagok ensemble for the performance of aristocratic lyric songs. The komungo has always been the primary instrument in the court orchestra; however, it was not a solo instrument. Approximately one hundred years ago two styles of komungo Sanjo, derived from folk music tradition, were improvised with a series of rhythmic cycles by Sin Kwe-dong and Han Gap-duk. This Sanjo is the first and only significant komungo solo repertoire.

Kim’s komungo solo pieces represent an evolution of the instrument into the twenty century. Kim’s komungo music are imbued with meditative and vivid energy that makes it mesmerizing. Kim co-designed the first and word’s only electric komungo. Kim creates live interactive pieces for the electric komungo and MIDI computer system. Kim remains true to the Korean nature of the instrument as her solo interweaves from an ancient timeless mind to space–age blips.

Over the last two decades Kim has performed as a komungo soloist in her compositions at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Royal Festival Hall, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Vancouver International Jazz & Blues Festival, Expo Zaragoza, and many significant new music festivals and jazz festivals throughout the world. She was commissioned by the Kronos Quartet, American Composers Orchestra, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, New Haven Symphony Orchestra, Xenakis Ensemble and many others for cross-cultural compositions using her komungo. She has improvised with many prominent figures in new music and avant-garde jazz including Elliott Sharp, Henry Kaiser, Bill Frisell, Dedrek Bailey, Evan Parker, Joelle Leandre, James Newton, Eugene Chadbourne, Oliver Lake, William Parker, Hans Reichel, Rudiger Carl and Gerry Hemingway.

In South Korea, Kim is highly respected for her role of cultural ambassador and her invention of the electric Komungo. National Broadcasting System (KBS-TV) produced an hour documentary film on Kim’s musical contribution and interviews about her electric komungo were broadcast on Arirang-TV and MBC-TV.

In addition to her primary instrument, the komungo, she also plays Korean percussion instruments such as janggo (hour glass shaped drum) and barrel drum set consisting of three to five highly ornate suspended barrel drums. The barrel drums were used in Korean traditional dance pieces, in which a dancer also plays the drums with vigorous rhythmic patterns. The drum solo is derived from the Buddhist monk’s drumming on a large barrel drum for meditation and enlightenment. It is one of the most popular repertoire pieces in Korean traditional music.

PROJECTS:

Jin Hi Kim is available for a variety of performance options ranging from solo and duo projects through to quintets and special projects including lectures, residencies and writing/performing commissions.

Komungo Meditation / Digital Buddha (solo)

Kim will use both acoustic komungo and the world’s only electric komungo for her solo recital. The komungo is a string instrument indigenous to Korea, originating in the fourth century. The six-stringed, fretted board zither was mainly used in the court music orchestra and kagok ensemble for the performance of aristocratic lyric songs. Traditionally, komungo was performed by male Confucian scholars for their meditation. The only solo repertory for komungo is sanjo, a long folk-style virtuoso master piece. Kim broke this tradition of formality and austerity when she went to live in the USA by creating innovative works. Kim’s komungo music represents an evolution of the instrument into the twenty-first century, a development she has pursued over twenty years. Kim has created a wide array of pioneering compositions for the komungo not only as a soloist but also collaborated with leading Western contemporary classical musicians, orchestra, jazz musicians, improvisers, and co-designed the world’s only electric komungo.

Her new komungo music is imbued with meditative and vivid energy that makes it mesmerizing. The electric komungo was built for Ms. Kim by Joseph Yanuziello in Canada in 1999. In collaboration with Alex Noyes, she has created the live interactive pieces for the electric komungo and MIDI computer system. Using MAX/MSP, the komungo sound is processed through a personal computer program, and she is then able to blend acoustic and processed sounds using MIDI foot pedal. This new MIDI computer/komungo arrangement allows her to trigger digital animations in live performance. Staying true to the nature of the instrument, her solo interweaves from old timeless mind to space-age blips.

Sanjo Ecstasy (quintet)

Following Jin Hi Kim’s appearance on Korean MBC-TV broadcast of the film 100 Years of Sanjo, a 90 minutes long Sanjo Ecstasy, conceived by Ms. Kim, was premiered to overwhelming success in Korea in 2003.

Sanjo Ecstasy features new generation of Korea’s leading musicians performing exotic traditional instruments (kayagum board zither, haegum fiddle, janggo drum), with American jazz percussionist Gerry Hemingway and Jin Hi Kim’s electric komungo.

Sanjo form, a virtuous solo repertoire, has evolved from the improvisational ensemble (sinawi) in the end of the 19th century in southern province in South Korea. From the sinawi form, two solo music forms were created: pansori, an epic drama song and the sanjo, an instrumental master piece. Through this new solo forms, the individual soul was independently and freely exploded at last in Korean history. This reveals that the suppressed society for ordinary people’s life was also changed dramatically at that time. This improvising legacy is similar to early American jazz.

In the sanjo form, the time sense is riveting, hypnotic and almost trance like in it’s manner of rhythmic repetition. These highly stylized rhythmic cycles gradually accelerate resulting in a mesmerizing experience. With an attempt of capturing the aesthetics and energy of the sanjo, Ms. Kim has developed a new piece, Sanjo Ecstasy. This suite has six sections that are performed without break. Each piece evokes its own energy and then links to the next. They are immersed with tension and release. In this new work, three traditional sanjo soloists move in and out of the traditional sanjo form as the electric komungo layers new sonic textures upon them. Korean janggo and a Western drum set juxtapose the time sense between sanjo rhythmic cycles and a free jazz time zone.

Unknot (trio)

Jin Hi Kim in collaboration with Min Xiao-Fen (Chinese pipa) and Gerry Hemingway (drum set) achieves an innovative style of music. Kim’s music on komungo and electric komungo, interwoven with the lyric expression on pipa and sound painting on drum set, evoke a rhythmic adventure from ancient to space-age blips.

Quagmire (trio)

Jin Hi Kim in collaboration with William Parker (bass) and Oliver Lake (saxophone) improvises freely and sensitively that is ever fresh and amazing.

SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY:

Sound Universe Living Tones #LTS001, USA (2009) Jin Hi Kim’s innovative Korean komungo/electric komungo music in collaboration with master musicians from Korea, China, Japan, India, Indonesia, Senegal, Australia, Germany, and the United States. A world-music tour with virtuoso performers on drums, pipa, didgeridoo, daxophone and others. Unknot

Komungo Ecstasy Living Tones #LTS002, USA (2009) Jin Hi Kim’s solos and a duo with Gerry Hemingway and video images by Benton-C Bainbridge and Joel Cadman.

Peter Kowald’s Global Village & Jin Hi Kim Free Elephant 001, Germany (2004)

Komungo O.O. DISCS #70, USA (2001) and Seoul Records SRCD-1470, Korea (2001) Selection of Jin Hi Kim’s solo komungo and electric komungo improvisations with Guest Artists Shonosuke Okura (Japan), Kongarol Ondar (Tuva) and Kang Kwon Soon (Korea) in Kim’s compositions. Komungo Meditation Saturn’s Moons

Duos For 4 EARS Records 1034, Switzerland (1999) Fredy Studer with Jin Hi Kim.

Synergetics-Phonomanie III LEO Records LR 239/240, London, England (1996) Evan Parker with Jin Hi Kim, George Lewis, Thebe Lipere, Carlo Mariani, Sainkho Namchylak, Walter Prati, Marco “Bill” Vecchi and Motoharu Yoshizawa.

Living Tones O.O. DISCS #24, USA (1995) and Seoul Records SRCD-1327, Korea (1996) Selection of Jin Hi Kim’s bi-cultural compositions: performed by five Korean music masters from the Korean Performing Arts Center including National Living Treasure, Chung Jae-Guk (piri), Hong Jong Jin (daegum) and Thomas Buckner (baritone), Joseph Celli (oboe), Robert Dick (flute), Jin Hi Kim and Sirius String Quartet. Nong Rock

Komungo Around The World Seoul Records SRCD-1234, Korea (1995) Kim duos with Adam Plack (didgeridoo), Mor Thiam (djembi), Rahul Sariputura (sitar), Hideaki Kuribayashi (koto). Frets Crossing Frets And It Goes By

Komunguitar Nonsequitur/What Next? WN0012, USA (1994) Kim duos with guitarists Derek Bailey, Eugene Chadbourne, Elliott Sharp, Henry Kaiser, and David First. Howdy Partner

No World (Trio) Improvisations O.O.DISCS #6, USA (1992) Jin Hi Kim and Joseph Celli with Shelley Hirsch, Malcolm Goldstein, Alvin Curran, Adam Plack, and Mor Thiam.

Circle of Fire AsianImprov Records 0009, USA (1992) Asian American Jazz: Jin Hi Kim, Mark Izu, James Newton, Lewis Jordan and Anthony Brown

Sargeng EarRational ECD1014, Germany (1991) Jin Hi Kim with Elliott Sharp & Henry Kaiser.

No World Improvisations O.O. DISCS #3, USA (1990) and Warner Music Korea WEA 9031-75410-2, Korea (1992) Jin Hi Kim (komungo and changgo) with Joseph Celli (oboe, Indian mukhaveena). Komukha

SELECTED PRESS REVIEWS:

“Virtuoso Jin Hi Kim promises thoughtful, shimmering East-West amalgams in combinations that are both new and unlikely to be repeated” (Peter Watrous, The New York Times)

“True world music being made here, both ancient and modern and without borders. Outstanding” (Dennis Yudt, Pulse Magazine)

“With her electric komungo, she floated sustained tones and rudimentary melodies or plucked twangs suggesting a jaw-harp or hinted at the bent notes of the blues” (Jon Pareles, The New York Times)

“A lush solo improvisation stays true to the nature of the komungo while showing real imagination about how its sound can be processed and coloured” (Clive Bell, Wire Magazine)

“Using sticks and fingers, she sculpted myriad bouncing, glissing, galloping attacks to produce small waves of melody that were cumulative in their power” (Kyle Gann, The Village Voice)

“Her right hand a flurry of strikes, the left a spider running up and down the fretboard, intuitively scattering harmonics and microtones and revealing a deep connection to her instrument that hasn’t been seen since Hendrix” (Andrew Jones, Option Magazine)

“Her unique vision blends science fiction images, state-of-the-art technology, ancient mythology and timeless music and dance traditions. No other artist is doing work quite like this, and she does it with superb style” (Joseph McLellan, The Washington Post)

“Kim’s austere music centered the work…. (she) applied the techniques of “living tones” to sustained notes: filling them with vibrato, tightening them until they broke, using glottal stops to make them ripple like waves around a rock… She turned Korean court-orchestra music into a haze of distant fanfares and remembered rites, from a time when the moon was a divine power” (Jon Pareles, The New York Times)

“It’s wonderful to see these diverse Asian styles converse. All the movements are grounded, yet how differently shaped and accented, how diverse the way feet strike the floor. In Kim’s score, the styles of the master musicians actually merge” (Deborah Jowitt, The Village Voice)

“A ground breaking collaboration, one which illuminates the artistic soul of Asia” (Thomas Morley, Asian American press)

“This is new music/world music at its finest, beyond political correctness, into the realm of the sublime, where words and cultural postures fall away” (Josef Woodard, The Los Angeles Times)

“The music derives primarily from her native Korea, but she brings modernist, eclectic and Occidental sensibilities to the music” (Dean Suzuki, Option Magazine)

“Kim’s close, high-pitched harmonies spoke with an original voice, but her propulsive solos on drums and wooden blocks gradually took over, leaving the audience breathless” (David J. Baker, New Haven Register)

“Some of the orchestral writing sounds like movie music, but the way that Kim extends the effect of the drums by additional percussionists ringed around the stage is striking” (Richard Dyer, The Boston Globe)

“A gorgeously tactile piece that moved easily between an earthy folksiness and meditative refinement” (Allan Kozinn, The New York Times)

“An essay in integration which suggested a Takemitsu-like ability to hover between eastern and western traditions” (Paul Griffiths, The Times)

“The delicacy of her effects (and of the Kronos Quartet’s playing) were constantly riveting” (John Rockwell, The New York Times)

“She applied the concept of “living tones” from traditional Korean music to the Western string quartet. The effect is a vivid one, especially in the high registers, where pitches slide in and out of consonances seductively. Kim is a composer to be watched” (Mark Sweed, Los Angeles Herald Examiner)

“An elegant, spare work involving a most interesting juxtaposition of ’soft’ tones- in which a note begins atone pitch and slides higher or lower to another-and firm attacks and releases. The whole is beautifully organized” (Roy M. Close, Pioneer Press)

“Her music is inspired by the directly textured instrumental sounds of her own country. It could never have been written by a native Californian or New Yorker. It’s exotic. It’s different. It reflects its culture in the same essential way that Beethoven’s quartets reflected his time” (David Harrigton, Kronos Quartet)

“Kim juxtaposes and synthesizes the timbres, techniques and even styles of East and West in a way that is at once jarring and inevitable” (Dean Suzuki, Option Magazine)

“An otherworldly violin and cello duet in which sliding tones gave the impression of brush strokes on a canvas” (Allan Kozinn, The New York Times)

Listen also to Jin Hi Kim: New Haven Symphony Podcast

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